


Savage, Rough, and Stern

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Futbal Mini-Bang, Greek Mythology AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>war-ridden Ancient Greece. Iker is a prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Savage, Rough, and Stern

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: this is about war. graphic depictions of violence, heavily implied suicide, and of course major character deaths. 
> 
> ALSO: historical inaccuracies

“Choice soul, in whom, as in glass, we see,

Mirrored in thy pure form and delicate,

What beauties heaven and nature can create,

The paragon of all their works to be!

Fair soul, in whom love, pity, piety,

Have found a home, as from thy outward state

We clearly read, and are so rare and great

That they adorn none other like to thee!

Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul;

Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes

Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat.

What law, what destiny, what fell control,

What cruelty, or late or soon, denies

That death should spare perfection so complete?”

-Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Doom of Beauty 

  
  
  


001 beauty.

 

It had been agreed upon when existence was just beginning to stretch across the other side of the universe that light could not remain forever, that all things living would eventually expire, and that heroes would die in vain. That every hair on their head, and every inch of skin that covered their weak, dusty bones, and every flesh-inspired, lust-filled desire would disappear in a flash of pain. It was promised that, ultimately, their darkness would be forgotten, their good deeds wiped from memory-- that to dust they would return.

 

And in the circles of hell they would weep like children because they thought they knew pain, but. They did not know pain. They would know it though, as they struggled in vain against chains and terror and desire. All heroes would know pain and death and pain beyond death.

 

He was born this way, as heroes are, from a king and a queen on the rocky shores of Greece while a storm raged on. The ocean and the battering and the cold spoke of disaster. He was an echo of the past-- of Achilles and Heracles and Orpheus. His mother wished him to remain an echo alone; her only wish was that he could not feel the pain of the world. Some temporary madness struck her, and upon looking into her baby boy’s eyes, she turned to dash his head against the rocky walls. He was saved at the last moment, as heroes are, and she was killed on the spot.

 

“You will rise to greatness,” he was told. But what is greatness to a child who only knows the world in terms of happy and sad and cold and warm. He only knew what he could touch and some distant golden crown was too heavy to brush his fingers against with childlike wonder.

 

He grew, content with his life and its simple pleasures. The sea against the shore and the blades of grass in the wind. The way the cliffs looked like wings when he lay on his back and stared from afar. His lips opening and closing with a whisper, like the wind cutting across his cheekbones. He shut his eyes and thought of winged gods. That was Greece in all its splendor. Not the golden halls with their golden kings and their sons bursting with confidence. This, the grass and the trees and the way the world fell into silence, was Greece.

 

002 love.

 

Iker was lying in the grass when he heard about the war. He closed his eyes and thought of winged gods and bloody spears and the golden crown that would fall past his head and rest against his collarbone. He was not yet large enough, not old enough, not wise enough to carry that circle of life and death and power. Like a noose, it would strangle him into cowardice. He feared the crown more than anything, preferred his life the way it was, quietly happy with no passions to sway him this way or that.

 

And then he looked up and a shepherd boy was walking by, and to everything else, he was blind. This boy was barefoot and smiling and a pan flute hung loosely from his callused fingers. He was strong and young, and so his eyes were not yet hollow with grief or longing. He was the sort of beauty the gods would dance along the edge of the mortal world for.

 

He saw Iker looking. There was a touch of confusion, a flicker of panic, and then he inclined his head. Addressed him properly with words Iker would never remember. He could only hear the wind in his ears, could only see the movement of the boy’s lips as they danced. Could only look at him and think, you have brought me to my knees.

 

“Have you heard the news?” he asked finally. Suddenly he lived an empty, colorless existence, and only this boy could keep him breathing.

 

“Of war?”

 

Iker nodded. He wished he would never have to speak again. He would rather stare and be breathless.

 

“Yes,” the boy admitted after a moment. His fingers twitched against the pan flute. “I’ve heard.”

 

The mention of that unpleasantness already began to chip at the naivety in his eyes. Darkness was pressing. He wanted no more talk of war; he inclined his head again, and when he left, Iker could feel his body break like the waves against the shore. Bitterness coursed through him. He wanted nothing in this world, nothing-- not a crown or a kingdom or a beautiful wife with curls that fell down her back like vines, not to wield a sword or become a hero. He didn’t want blood.

 

He wanted lips, those lips that molded themselves around the flute as he walked; and hands, those hands that were callused and weary; and those curls that brushed his forehead as he walked. Before he had even begun to memorize this boy’s features, Iker had abandoned all thought of earthly pleasure for one second of their potential heaven.

 

003 dream.

 

He awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs. It was his familiar sound, and the only sound that reminded him of his mother. Though talk of her was forbidden in the castle, Iker’s father could never quite forget the kindness she had once carried in her heart, and so when Iker was young, he had given him a small portrait. Her eyes were the color of the ocean on a cold, cold day.

 

Normally, when he couldn’t sleep, he would wade into the water and stare at nothing until he thought he could feel the presence of, on occasion, his mother-- but more often than not, the gods.  He never doubted them. But it was easy for a prince to be devout. What did he have to doubt when his plate was always full and gold fell around him like rain in the spring?

 

That night, for the first time, he did doubt. He waded into the water and stared until his eyes found nothing but darkness, and in that darkness, he found the source of his doubt; for the first time in his life, he wanted. Truly, truly wanted something so much he would tear apart the world to stop feeling. He kicked the water like an animal and swore, swore quietly and angrily under his breath that he would not love if he could not be loved in return, missing the point completely -- as heroes often do.

 

And the very next morning, when his father summoned him to his private chambers, he would remember his cold-hearted promise. “Love is a god-given gift, Iker. They tell us to marry and have sons, so you must marry and have sons.”

 

“If I’m to go off to war, there’s no point in marrying and leaving a wife and child behind.” He thought he was smart, but one glimpse of a boy sent him reeling. That was always their flaw: their pride, their confidence, their unwillingness to recognize their own fragile mortality. It would kill him, as it killed them all.

 

His father looked at him with the weight of some prophecy or dream in his eyes. And he told him once again, “You will rise to greatness or be left in the dust. The choices you make will determine your path.”

 

“Choices,” Iker repeated. The wing-shaped cliffs and the wind that carried the past on it and the waves that kissed the shore-- Greece; it was all forgotten, replaced not only by the dark eyes of the shepherd boy, but also by the newest dark, mortal desire to grip him like a choking vine. “They determine any man’s path.”

 

“But you are not just any man.” His eyes were the dark chestnut of the trees in spring; sad now, darkened by his discontent. “We will all fade to nothing,” he said. “I will fade to nothing, but there is hope for you.”

 

The prince’s proud heart craved more, as heroes hearts do. That was always how it began. They were naive and kind and interested in the world for what it was. For how the waves crashed against the shore and for the gentleness that had the potential to seep into every moment. And then they heard talk of swords clashing and blood dripping and a crown of golden leaves being threaded through their hair-- they heard talk of glory and suddenly their love faded to madness, and they were lost. But this is how life goes.

 

“Marry,” he said, seeing the change in Iker’s eyes. “And go off to war next year. This will be a long one. Ensure your legacy before you prove yourself, and then you will have no fear.”

 

He thought of Greece. He didn’t care about defending the people he had never known. He thought only of the land being cut into by the vile barbarians that threatened their shores. The land and the sea and his mother’s eyes. Cold, cold blue. And another pair, the shepherd boy’s dark, beautiful brown ones like the mud in the winter. The strange, twisted obsession he harbored in his heart after one single sighting had awoken a million different poisonous desires.

 

“I’ll finish my training,” he said finally. “When I’m ready, I’ll go. If the war will have me.” His father opened his mouth, but the crown had shifted. Iker raised a hand to silence him. “But I won’t marry.”

 

004 haunted.

 

They finally met again in the olive orchard.

 

The sun was filtering in through the trees, and Iker had just finished his lessons for the day. He was exhausted, so weak and so tired of thinking about all the blood he was preparing to shed. He didn’t want to think about that color, but that was the nature of things. Heroes are never left untouched.

 

He was thinking about the blood dripping from his sword when his body went limp, his muscles recognizing the boy before his eyes did. A dark, dark mess of hair, and eyes so wide and honest and young that Iker, for all his talk of war, would have launched a thousand white-sailed ships to keep the peace, if only it meant one night staring at the beauty that walked his way.

 

“I’ve come to offer my services,” he said quietly. His voice washed over Iker like a flood, crashing through his ears and drowning out the world. And quiet Greece, calm Greece, Greece of the wing-cliffs and the spotted hills and the leaves that whispered as he walked by-- the beauty of an entire land couldn’t hold a candle to the soft-eyed boy.

 

Iker said nothing. He had nothing but contempt for the meaningless sounds that distracted him from drinking in every inch of this boy’s beauty.

 

“Please,” he said gently. “I heard your father was looking for a servant for you.” He bent his head respectfully as if looking Iker in the eye was too forward.

 

Iker simply nodded. Anything, he thought, anything you want.

 

“Your name,” he demanded, so he could carve it into himself with a whisper like a blade.

 

“Cesc,” the boy answered. His eyes were dark, and --

 

Beautiful boy, beautiful beautiful boy. There was nothing in the world Iker wouldn’t give for him. Gold was useless and food was uninteresting. He would burn Greece to the ground, carve out the ocean and give it back to the sky, cut the moon into little pieces and feel the sun’s wrath-- anything. Anything but see that boy bleed.

 

005 fragile.

 

It was terrifying the way it took him over. Like a man inches from death and desperate for water, he craved Cesc and Cesc alone. And it wasn’t pure, but it was as love should be: broken and dissatisfying, disfigured by loneliness, with mere glimpses of unattainable pleasure to keep him stumbling down that long and blinding road.

 

Cesc was there in the morning when he ate his first meal before training, staring at him over the rim of his wooden cup. All fresh-eyed and sleepy with his hair a wavy mess, falling into his eyes. Every so often, he would reach up to brush it away, and Iker would have died on the spot if he could wrench that moment from his life and take it with him to the land beyond death. He didn’t need to kill thousands in battle to turn himself to gold; he only needed to watch as Cesc brushed his hair away, and the transformation was complete.

 

After training, Iker was tired. He was stretched out on his bed when Cesc entered with a stack of fresh clothing.

 

“What do you think of it all?” he finally asked as the other boy moved around the room. They rarely spoke. Iker hated to color the purity of silence.

 

“The war.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Yes. The war.”

 

“Good men die.” Cesc's expression was unreadable, but his eyes were soft as always.

 

“Good men die anyway. With glory they die better deaths.”

 

“Is there really such a thing as a good death?"

 

Iker looked at him for a long time before answering, "Theres such a thing as a bad one. If you have one side of the coin, you must have the other, at least in part."

 

"No," Cesc answered quietly, like it made him sad to think about. "Dead is dead. Is it not?"

 

Iker just frowned, and they didn't speak again until evening. He was thrown off-balance, but he did not stumble in his pursuit for returned affection. For his love was made in the heaven-- he believed-- and so it could not fail. And he was a hero, so he could not fail. Not in love and not with a sword in his hands, but of course a bone-startling love--if nothing else-- instilled in him a new kind of fear.

 

After their meal in the evening, and more pain-inducing staring over a wooden cup, he asked that Cesc join him in his room, and the other boy accepted, though really he had no choice. His hair fell across his face as he nodded, and Iker knocked over his wine in his hurry to disguise his staring as nothing but momentary confusion.

 

Later, in his room, he was still blushing as he stumbled over the words that spoke of Cesc's beauty. But none, he said, not a single word in their language or the others, could even hope to capture the fire he held firm in his heart. When Cesc turned away, his cheeks were red as the sunset, his eyes heavy-lidded and soft, and when Iker kissed him, his lips were even softer.

 

That was the summer of impossibility. They ran through the olive orchards, barefoot and smiling, and they climbed the trees until their hands were scratched and bloodied, and they kissed under the star-scattered sky as if that would make them any less mortal. As if that would chase away the ships that arrived every day to beg the king to join the war effort. As if the heaven they created could cripple the wrath of the heaven above. The gods would demand men, demand blood-- demand a hero. And Ithaca would deliver, as it once had.

 

"I see you sometimes. Standing in the water in the middle of the night."

 

Cesc still spoke to Iker as if he responded as humans normally do. He was reminded in times like these how eerily silent his companion was, that prompts did nothing more than dance along his peripheral vision like a moth fluttering loosely in the wind.

 

"What is it that--" The question expired on Cesc’s lips. He was sitting with his back to the cliffs, beneath the shade of a tree. The leaves brushed his hair when the wind whistled through as if even the very land itself was frantic to melt into his existence.

 

Finally, heavy-lidded, he finished quietly, "What is it that you think about?"

 

He used to think of the gods with their golden blood and golden crowns; Apollo with his beautiful blond curls and skin so smooth it might as well have been marble; or Poseidon striding through the water, a mile and a half taller than the crests of the largest, crashing waves; Zeus with his sparkling thunder and Hera with her devastating wrath; Athena with her eyes as cold as the sea and Artemis, lithe and powerful with skin as ice-cold as snow, even Hestia of the heart-shaped face and kindly eyes. He thought of mischievous Hermes, rambunctious Dionysius and ugly, brilliant Hephaestus, but most of all he thought of sweet, dangerous Aphrodite-- eyes as deep, rich green as seaweed; hair the color of burnt driftwood; skin pale as seafoam in the winter, fading from its sharpness to the creamy light brown of sand in the summer. He imagined that she had blessed the land with her beauty, and that when he fell in love, it wouldn't feel like such a storm.

 

But that dark time of dreaming was over. He had eyes to fall into and human hands to hold. A dreamer no longer, he was wiser and stronger, and the ships with their slowly greying sails were always on his mind.

 

"The war," he said finally. "I have always thought of war."

 

"And me?" Cesc asked sweetly-- cruelly. "Do you ever think of me?"

 

"Cesc," he said, "I never stop."

 

006 blood.

 

Kings from all over Greece came to see the army Iker would lead. He had read, fought, and bled so much-- ultimately for so little. He would see much more and fight much more and, ultimately, bleed so much more blood that the red of his intuition and the black of his passion would be as visible as the flesh cut from his bones. Perhaps he would tease greatness but he would bleed first.

 

But no one spoke of blood at a feast for a prince about to ride off to war, and if they spoke of it, it was only as they raised their glasses in honor of the darkness he would spill.

 

His father gave a long speech, waving his arms and narrowing his eyes, and if there was one thing his father could do, it was talk. And talk and talk and talk. Until quiet Greece, calm Greece, Greece of the wing-shaped cliffs and the wind whistling peacefully in his ears--Greece roared.

 

A quiet voice was at his ear, pressing impatient fingers into Iker's skin. "You're not capable of that."

 

But he must have known it wasn't true. From the way Iker had learned to hunt in the woods and gather water from impossible sources and scale the side of a slippery cliff. He had learned to survive, to survive at all costs, and if surviving didn't mean killing, then he was lost.

 

"I'm capable of many things," he replied, holding his glass up to his lips to disguise the movement.

 

"Killing," he breathed, as the men moved around the Great Hall with their bulky cloaks and heavy pride. "This war. These deaths. You're not capable of killing senselessly."

 

Iker didn't reply; he rarely did, but his hand moved to rest on Cesc's thigh, to comfort him and to make him understand what a hero would risk for greatness. You, he thought. A hero would risk you. I am not a hero.

 

But later, they were walking outside in their olive grove, and Iker remembered the first time he had memorized Cesc's features, how vividly the lines of that boy's smile still burned every time he closed his eyes. He remembered how bruised and muddy his knobby knees had gotten when they had clambered through the mud, racing to see who would get to the castle first-- the streak of mud across his left cheek, how he had closed his eyes to let Iker rub it away, and his eyelashes brushed his cheekbones. Iker's hand formed a fist at his side, as if he could take hold of the memory, shoot it up his veins, and let it take root somewhere beneath his ribs.

 

"You think you're incapable of brutality. That's just the way people think, until they picture themselves..." He drifted off. Cesc stumbled over a weed beside him. His eyes were trained on Iker when he should have been watching the path in front of him.

 

"What," he urged softly, his dark eyes reflecting the torches that lit up the temple just up the path. He was still too much breathless wonder and too little unpolished metal.

 

"If you picture yourself with blood on your hands and you call it glory, you will want blood on your hands, and you will want glory." He was walking towards the beach again like he did every night, and he didn't speak again until he was knee-deep in the salty water. "And then you will understand that you are capable of anything--anything-- No, Cesc."

 

Suddenly it was imperative that Cesc did not come to war at all. He was just meant to be a servant and not fight and not die, but if there was a bloodlust in Iker, there was a bloodlust waiting to consume every man. Flames would lick up their bodies until the fire resided in their hearts, the smoke blinding them. Incapable of humanity in those narrow, dark places, they would fight over a body to destroy.

 

"Don't look at me like that."

 

"Like what?"

 

"Like you love me."

 

Cesc blinked. "But I do."

 

"You can't. Where we go--" He faltered. "This is where men go to die."

 

Greece was roaring in his ears. He couldn't look at the wing-shaped cliffs without seeing figures falling and thinking over and over to himself, asking, why do we fall?

 

"Then I go there to die," he said simply, and he held Iker's gaze with those dark, dark eyes until Iker found himself lowering his own eyes in submission.

 

Cesc stumbled back down the dusty path, inclining his head in the direction of the temple-- the one source of light-- as he passed. Iker watched the way he walked, and he remembered tracing his hipbones with one finger and watching as Cesc unraveled beneath him. He remembered combing back his hair with one hand and feeling his heart grow with pride, because the gods would touch down on the earth, would let their immortal, sculpted bodies grace the dusty earth to look upon this boy as he closed his eyes to fall asleep.

 

007 war.

 

Their camp was on a beach with thick, dark sand, much darker than the sands of Greece. Where the water touched the shore, stones, pebbles, and shells mixed with the wet paste. There was hardly any breeze, and the cliffs jutted out unfamiliarly. He did not belong here in this strange land.

 

"What's this?" Cesc was hovering excitedly around the camp. Normally sweet and reserved, his energy was distracting Iker. He couldn't focus on organizing supplies when Cesc desperately needed a haircut, when his curls fell over his eyes, and he smiled past them.

 

He walked over slowly, feet unaccustomed to the new thickness beneath them. His smile faded as he drew closer, and a simple wooden slab with cloth straps came into view.

 

Cesc was running his hands over the rough wood, murmuring his plans to smooth it out and use it as a cot. "I could sleep here," he said happily.

 

Iker jerked back, a flash of cold anger running through him. "Get away from that. That's not for you to touch. Do you understand?"

 

Cesc looked up in surprise. Iker, who had never spoken a cruel word to him, who had never given him reason to doubt the feelings that flowed like a current between them, was staring at him like a stranger. And this war, this war was already burning so deep. Cesc wished he could rid them both of it.

 

He looked again at the slab in his hands, and the realization slid over him like a cool rain. Instantly, he paled and stepped back, dropping the white cloth straps back into place.

 

"You will never get near that," Iker snapped, his voice harsher than Cesc had ever heard it. "Do you understand me?"

 

All Iker could see was Cesc, split open and bloody with his curls falling over his eyes, lying on the wood with his arms and legs splayed like a dead spider. He blinked rapidly, tasting bile at the back of his throat.

 

Cesc nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  
  


They didn't attack until a fortnight later when the formal introductions were made. The entire army was assembled, ship upon ship upon ship. More wooden planks and more men to fill them.

 

Iker's army, though the largest Ithaca had raised in some time, was only a small part of the greater Greek force commanded by a calm Athenian, Raul. Widely accepted as the son of Athena, he was the wisest of the Greeks. Even the Spartans, known for their hostility toward the Athenian way of life, paid him the respect he was due.

 

It was he who gave the speech in the middle of the firelit, wind-whipping night. And under him, the Greeks didn't make a sound; their rage simmered beneath the surface as he spoke of their home, their hard-eyed wives, their sons not old enough to lift a sword, and their daughters who dreamt of constellations; he spoke of the land too: the hard soil and the fig trees in the summer and the rocky cliffs that scarred bare feet and hands.

 

If only for a night, Iker loved past dark eyes and slender fingers and the way Cesc smiled so hard he squeezed his eyes shut. He dreamt again of the winged figures hidden in the cliffs and the wind whistling over the waves Poseidon riled up.

 

The torches flickered when the next man stood, and Iker's thoughts of a peaceful time were ashes on his tongue. Raul was the brain of the army; they would have only their wrath and their fear without him. But this man, tall and muscular, with a wild humor that didn't fit a Spartan king, was the soul.

 

He held the gaze of every man, drinking in their rage and letting it swell his own. He didn't speak of the family they left at home. He had no concept of defense or what was left in the cold when the army flew to the south. When his voice rang out over the ranks, the men were bewitched by his talk of glory, of blood, of the passion that made a sword swing in a beautiful, downward arc like the waning moon.

 

His lip curled in disgust, and Iker stared up at him in awe as he spoke, swiftly and roughly. He could imagine him fighting, a scar up his leg spurting blood, a thin red line running from his lower lip to his chin, and he would grin. He was the sort of man who would let the bloodlust take him so firmly that every life stolen would spurn him on.

 

He said they would attack in the night and steal their victory like thieves. Kill, he said, and kill and kill and kill.

 

After his speech-- after Greece roared at his feet-- he ran barefoot across camp to stop Iker as he was helped into his armor.

 

"Iker," he said, nodding, "It's good to have Ithaca behind us."

 

A more animalistic side of Iker bared its teeth, and he felt like shooting back-- beside you, not behind you. We don't follow Sparta. But then his servant handed him his sword, and he was returned to himself.

 

"Ithaca is proud to follow Sparta into anything."

 

And they would be; they would follow Sparta into death.

 

That night, the river ran red. Iker killed, and Cesc stayed in the tent. Still too green to disobey, Cesc's safety was a certainty among the wounded. He tended to the sick as best he could, but when he saw Iker walking towards their tent covered in blood that was not his own, he raced over to clean him off with spare linens and muddy river water.

 

Iker was pale, his jaw tense. He wasn't trembling with excitement like the Spartan king or calm, cool, and sorry like Raul. He was a sickly combination of the two; hands shaking, lips burning, eyes darting back and forth between Cesc and his sword as if forcing himself to make a choice. One or the other, never both. The cold power of the metal could never touch Cesc's warmth. He had to shift restlessly between the two, hot and cold until he was feverish, then steady.

 

"What happened," he murmured calmly. It was barely a question. If the blood wasn't proof enough, it was because he wasn't paying attention.

 

"He told us to kill. And kill and kill and kill."

 

"And what did you do?"

 

"Kill," he murmured, not hearing Cesc's question, eyes vacant and lost.

 

"And what will you do tomorrow?" Hoping for a different answer, for some sign of the prince who rode off to war, not the beaten, bloodied murderer that had returned.

 

"Kill. And kill and kill and kill."

  
  


Cesc had to coax Iker into cleaner clothes, had to help him walk steadily along the shore of the dark beach. First one foot and then the other, Cesc told him, patiently guiding him until he was standing in the water like he did every night, and the water folding in on itself against his shins was enough to wake him from his ghostly stupor.

 

He blinked a few times like he was holding a memory at bay and washing the present forward.

 

"Are you okay?"

 

No. No, he was remembering the fear in their eyes as he hacked away at a man for trying to defend his home. He wondered if that man's last thought had been of his family, of his love, or if in his last three seconds of life, he worried about the condition of his earthly soul.

 

He remembered slitting a man's throat and bending down to look in his eyes, possessed by some demon with that morbid fascination. He listened to the way he choked on his own blood, watched as it bubbled and frothed and trickled like a flood out his open mouth.

 

He cut them open. They were like dams bursting.

 

"Yes," Iker said at last, to the waves and to the sun as it bled across the sky. He wouldn't look at Cesc.

 

"Things changed since we set out for this place."

 

"Yes."

 

"You don't ever seem to be happy."

 

There isn't happiness in this rotten, broken land. No happiness but the tiny bit you give me with your smile as you speak of home. But he couldn't say it-- wouldn't. Later, when they had more time.

 

"At least tell me it has more to do with the war than it has to do with me."

 

Iker turned on him quickly, eyes wide with desperation. "It has everything to do with the war," he said firmly. "Don't you understand what I would give for you?"

 

Cesc was silent.

 

"The world," Iker said. "And then some."

 

If he had looked at Cesc's eyes a second longer, he would have been breathless. There wasn't a thing in the world Iker wouldn't destroy to save him. He wanted to tell him, to reach for him. He had never wanted this before-- to break something and carry the pieces to his lover and say, "Look, see. This. This is what I would do for you." This has everything to do with the war, and nothing to do with love.

 

It became a routine. Iker would walk into the tent in his stupor, and Cesc would walk him to the water where he would grip his hands and tell him that everything was going to be okay, that-- see, this is what I would do for you.

 

He cleaned and bandaged his wounds and, for a time, there was relative peace amidst the chaos. He would ask Iker every so often -- when Iker snapped at him or was slower than normal coming out of his deathly trance-- "The war?"

 

And Iker would reply solemnly with a number. Some days it was twelve and others it was forty-two, forty-three; he lost count after fifty. Cesc would wince every time Iker counted the hearts he stopped, the lives he had halted, the spiderwebs of torture he had spun. But Iker relayed the information calmly, as if storing that bloodshed in a number kept the guilt at bay.

 

And so the guilt was kept at bay. But that is not the nature of a hero. They may suppress and fight and thrash around until even the Fates think they have enough strength to avoid getting tangled in the strands of their own destiny, but they will always fail.

 

When he returned with the blood and the sand and the numbness, he looked into Cesc's dark eyes, and he remembered the feel of Greek soil beneath his bare feet, and he remembered his cliffs and the winged figures he pictured falling. And now, when he posed the familiar question-- why do we fall-- he wasn't looking upon his familiar cliffs. He was staring at the barren landscape of a war zone littered only with bodies and the makeshift homes of invaders.

 

He didn't belong there. He didn't belong in that strange land.

 

008 reckoning.

 

Up until that day, Iker's command alone had saved Cesc from joining the fighting. The excuse was that he would tend to the sick, but as soon as prisoners and slaves were introduced to the camp, his presence became noticeable. His relative lack of skills in healing and his strong, able body from years working the land did nothing to help. When Sergio and Raul came to his tent, he bowed his head in acknowledgement. He knew what they had come for.

 

"We need every able-bodied man," Raul said apologetically. "Everything you have done working with the sick, we appreciate--"

 

"But this is a war," Sergio said fiercely, his blood pumping faster through his veins just for the sound of the word, "And wars aren't won by stitching up wounds."

 

He knew they would come for him at some point. He put the bloody cloth down on a dead man's chest. That's what the tent was becoming anyway-- a crypt where the living came to suffocate-- and he needed to inhale something other than the dead, dead air. Foolish boy. What did he think a battlefield was?

 

He stood up and nodded tensely to Raul. He couldn't look Sergio in the eye; he was far too wild to reason with.

 

"Where will you have me?"

 

And then there was a tear in the tent and an angry shout as Iker came barreling past the man who stood guard, sword drawn and eyes flashing. He would kill. He would rip something apart and hand it to Cesc proudly and say, "See. This. Look at what I would do for you."

 

"What is the meaning of this? Are you so desperate for total annihilation that you're taking our medics?"

 

Sergio started towards him angrily, temper always flaring at the smallest sign of trouble. "You can't just--"

 

"Where would you be?" Iker shouted over him. He wasn't even angry, not really; it was just fear, fear all over. "How many times has he fixed you? Where would you be without him? With half an arm? What kind of king would you be in your grave?"

 

Sergio opened his mouth, but Iker was faster, bringing his sword down in a violent arc to cut the wooden panel between them clean in half.

 

Sergio didn't look likely to back down, and the sword landing just inches from his hand only intensified the fire in his eyes. He had the look of a cobra preparing to strike.

 

In a flash, Raul was there, pressing a reassuring but firm hand into Sergio's chest. He was quite possibly the only man in Greece who could silence Sergio with a single, warning look.

 

“Iker,” he said with a sympathetic glance in Cesc’s direction, “We’ve already decided on a place for him.” Iker stepped forward hotly, but before he could reply-- “Your chariot,” Raul said quickly. “He’ll drive your chariot.”

 

He froze for a moment, and images-- Cesc beside him while he felt the hot rush of his own brutal forces; Cesc’s head broken open like a vase on the floor. Seeing bits of his brain and watching a giant crush his delicate fingers like they were nothing more than pale twigs. But having Cesc beside him, watching him tear the world in two, was a gift compared to whirling around in a sea of bloody, muddy men trying to find that mess of dark hair and those hands that knew how to hold life together.

 

"No," he said weakly, knowing it was mercy already. Asking for more was cowardly, but he would gladly rip the lion's skin from his body and stand as a man unwilling to crush his own world.

 

"People are starting to talk," Sergio spat. "Why is the pretty one stitching men up when he's strong and healthy? Why have the others gone away and he remains?" He imitated the men with their narrow, suspicious eyes, "Is our Commander picking favorites?" He stepped so close Iker could feel his hot, murderous breath. "You know, it's normal for young boys to be each other's... companions." A hard glance at Cesc. "But don't you think it's time to grow up?"

 

When Iker thought about it later, he pictured himself rising up like a phoenix from ashes and utterly destroying the Spartan king with his flame. Later, when he had more time, he would remember and wish he had killed him on the spot, or perhaps turned the sword on himself. Come what may; let the consequences torture him. If he could go back to that night, he would force any feeling on himself-- anything would have been better than the cold indifference that settled over him like a funeral shroud.

 

"What are you talking about?" His voice was hollow. Gone was the man of quiet Greece, calm Greece, Greece of the cliffs that looked like-- what was it? He could hardly remember anymore. He was too far removed from that man and that land and that world of dark-eyed shepherds.

 

"I'm talking about you and that one.” Sergio stuck his finger accusingly in Cesc's direction. Raul half-closed his eyes, waiting for the impact. He had watched too many fights between his men to misunderstand.

 

Iker slapped his hand down like he would a fly on the wall.

 

"Iker," Raul said sternly, stepping in before Sergio could split the other man in two. "No one is condemning you for your actions. We have no problem with what happens between..." He trailed off, running his hand over his chin as if the gesture made up for his lack of words.

 

Before he could continue, Iker was numb all over like he was in the middle of the battlefield. The rising dust, the red-brown paste of dirt and blood, the anguished cries, and falling, feeling like he was falling.

 

"N-nothing," he stammered, not looking at Cesc who hung back behind Raul with a revolted look rotting his features. He was wearing a loose shirt with a bloodstain near the collar from the man he couldn't save. His eyes were round like gold coins and his hands hung helplessly at his sides. There wasn't a thing he could do but watch as Iker--

 

"How could you even suggest something like that?" He'd never sounded so disgusted or embarrassed; it was the kind of biting tone that could erase the years of running side by side, of kissing with their toes curling in the sand, of staring, wishing, waiting.

 

"People talk," Sergio murmured, eyes darting between Iker and Cesc as if he sensed what was unraveling.

 

"Well, silence them. I won't have your men, or mine, soiling my honor with this--" Half a second's pause. "...disgusting rumor. You're right, for young boys, it's a way to grow up. But we're men now."

 

"And it's time to leave the spring behind." As quickly as he had rose to meet the challenge of Iker's wrath, Sergio had cooled. His eyes contained a steel residue.

 

In a different life, Iker would have admired his strength and passion, would have laughed at his wild humor and loved the way he walked like the world was burning behind him. But this was not a different life, and his admiration for Sergio was never more than a grateful nod as he buried a hatchet in the enemy.

 

When the two men left, Iker watched the flap of the tent sway in the wind. Back and forth, revealing an ebony strip of the starless night. He watched until he couldn't avoid those empty, dark eyes anymore.

 

Cesc had his arms folded over his chest like he was holding himself together, and the pain was burning in his eyes, burning like the fire from the torches outside their temple back home. The only light in a forest of darkness. He could see it now, the pale steps, the tall altar, and the ring of torches around the structure. He remembered how they used to walk past it to reach the shore. But that was a lifetime ago, and he was a different flame.

 

He thrust his chin up, not even half an inch, but Iker knew how he stood and walked and breathed, and he saw it for what it was: an act of defiance, a rip in the fateful thread that connected them.

 

"You're ashamed," he said, his voice rising up strong and accusatory until the very last syllable stuck in his throat.

 

There was a lifetime of scars behind his eyes, and Iker remembered everything he would do for this boy, remembered how he would tear the world in two; he remembered how they would dart through the trees like arrows and run until their lungs were bursting for air, falling into each other's arms when the fatigue was too much, and the sand was soft beneath them. When they collapsed into the warmth of it and fanned out their bodies on the beach for the sun to feast greedily upon-- that was it, that was what he had torn in two, not the world on a silver platter.

 

Iker didn't say anything. He couldn't even count the number of times he should have spoken but, instead, chose to remain silent. Later, when they had more time. Perhaps then he would tell Cesc what he meant to say. Still drowning somewhere in his silences, he would point across the sea and say, there-- there is home with the cliffs like clipped wings and the caves like angry foaming mouths, and those places and this feeling of oblivion is what you are to me.

 

"After all this time," Cesc murmured. "Bastard. I thought you would have found your courage by now."

 

But courage is for heroes, he wanted to say, and a hero would give you up. There was no rhyme or reason to performing the balancing act between human and hero.

 

"Tomorrow," he said instead, weakly. "Is that when they want you to start?"

 

Cesc gave him one long, hard look, and the dullness was transformed. A beast roared beneath the surface. And quiet Greece, calm Greece-- he was Greece no longer. His eyes weren't the color of the mud in the rain; they were the churning dark mass of it beneath the stumbling, fated footsteps of soldiers.

 

"Tomorrow," he answered finally.

 

Iker longed for the days of their youth, when five years hadn't passed shriveling in the sun, waiting for some god to take mercy on the crumpled mess of a people. He longed for peace, for the days he spent alone, and for the days he spent with Cesc feeling the thunder of it all thrum under his skin.

 

"Do you remember," he said finally, and Cesc looked up with a heartbreakingly small glimmer of hope. "Do you remember when we would climb the trees together in the spring and feel how hot the sun was? And we'd burn under it for hours just to..." He drifted off, finding himself again in the memories. "...and when you fell from the tree that day, and you were bleeding, and I was so afraid because I hated the look of that color on you. Do you remember..." There was a catch in his throat. "...do you remember home?"

 

"Of course," he said softly.

 

Iker could still see him stretched out on the ground beneath the trees with a trickle of blood running down his cheek, still grinning that lazy smile despite his rather conquered state.

 

"But Iker," he began again, voice still soft as the wind that tousled his hair. "It's time to leave the spring behind."

  
  
  


He was standing in the water again when Raul appeared beside him. He stood there, tall and silent, until Iker looked up from the water and stared him down plainly.

 

"Do we need to discuss strategy?"

 

"No."

 

"Have my men done something wrong?"

 

"No."

 

"Have you come to admire the water then?"

 

"No," he said again with the hint of a smile. "I came to see that there were no hard feelings. When it becomes painful, I do what must be done and no more. There was no strategy behind our conversation earlier. We simply noticed a strong, young man capable of fighting--"

 

"And you took him from me," Iker cut in lifelessly.

 

"If you had never hid him away in the first place, we wouldn't have had to take anything." Raul was calm and collected, not a hair out of place, but at the accusation, he frowned and a muscle jumped in his jaw. Quiet, scheming, fast.

 

Iker was unresponsive for a long while, just listening to the sound of the waves beat against the shore. Then, "It's his absence that I fear, not being stolen from. Take anything you want. If you asked me to die tomorrow, I would. Just bring him back to me."

 

Well aware of how he sounded, he turned on the Athenian king with desperation. "We've been here for five years. Five years and one man is going to make a difference?"

 

But Raul, true to his nature and the nature of his immortal mother, calmly shook his head. "It's not the man. It's the principle of the matter. All must be fair when it comes to war."

 

"But not love," Iker said bitterly.

 

"No, not love." He stepped back as the water crawled up the shore to nip at his feet. A true son of Athena, forever avoiding Poseidon's domain. "Chin up, Iker," he said, eyeing the water. "You will keep Cesc safe, and if it puts you at ease, I'll pray to my mother for his safety as well."

 

Relief coursed through him. Safe. Safe like the hot sand between their toes and the smell of home in every inhale.

 

Raul's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Let it not be said that I am an unjust king." He turned quickly on his heel and left Iker alone to his thoughts.

 

He cared nothing for justice or kings-- good or bad. He wanted nothing more to do with the world in its damaged state. He only wanted to breathe in the boy with the dark hair and watch as he stood up from his fall, watch all over again as he fell from the tree and blood trickled down the side of his face. But he rose. He would always rise.

  
  


009 death.

 

From the very start, Cesc avoided him. He drove Iker’s chariot without a word to the man beside him. Fought bravely. Sometimes Iker could hardly see him through the dust, and the fear that shot through him was the only incentive he needed to live. Through the mass of bodies and the fountains of blood, he watched for the dark head of curls that, every so often, would look over his shoulder and find Iker.

 

For months, he avoided certain death. A spear would be headed straight at his skull and then, suddenly, someone would be there to block it. More often than not, it was Raul or Iker himself, but sometimes Sergio leapt into the path, snarling like some dark, angry beast. Strange even for his battle trance, the defense seemed to take on an obsessive intensity. Afterwards, when they were back at the camp and Cesc held a hand out to thank Sergio, he looked confused as if he had smacked his head on a hard, sharp rock. Puzzled and lost, he wandered around camp in a circle before finally finding his way back to his tent.

 

After four months, Cesc finally stormed over to where Iker was cleaning a deep wound in his thigh. The prince’s heart pounded against his rib cage, but he kept his eyes calm.

 

“Did you tell them to do this?” Cesc’s voice was low, quiet-- ashamed, Iker realized. Ashamed that he couldn’t defend himself and angry that Iker recognized his weakness.

 

“To do what?”

 

“To defend me. To save me. To make it like I’m not even there at all.”

 

Iker barely looked at him. He was confident, cocky almost. With Cesc safe, they could return to their bubble. He could pretend that death was never on his mind, that Cesc was immortal, so he could laugh and smile and discard all thoughts of that loss he so feared.

 

“Why would I ask them to protect you?” It came out harsher than he intended. He was trying to sound light-hearted, but Cesc jerked back like he’d been slapped.

 

His eyes flicked down to the wound on Iker’s thigh. “Forget it,” he muttered. Clipped wings, falling, falling. “And you should really dress that before it turns green.”

 

He left.

 

Come back to me, Iker wanted to say. But, later, when they had more time. When they weren’t in the middle of a war. He would tell him on a warm, summer night while they were rowing out to the caves with the mossy rocks. He would tell him slowly and carefully, every word lingering on his tongue like the sea clinging to the shore.

  
  
  


The next few months passed quickly, and Iker was growing more and more confident. The Greeks were winning every battle. They came back to camp to celebrate. The women they had taken as prisoners were treated like queens-- in the opinion of the Greeks. And slaves-- in the opinion of the women. They were weighed down, shackled with the jewels the Greeks had stolen from the women’s own homeland. Bright sparkling sapphires, diamonds with ruby noses, a solid gold claw Raul kept on the shoulder of his tunic.

 

The camp grew rich. They loaded their ships with as much wealth as they could carry and still they carried more. The men began to talk again of home. But when they spoke, they didn’t speak as Raul did on that first night before they spilled blood under the stars. They didn’t speak of the land or their wives and children or the way the wind blew. They spoke of glory, a poisonous beast that filtered into the mind of every man who ever lifted a sword. Even Cesc, the incorruptible, was not left entirely untouched.

 

Greed gripped the camp with thick hands. When they spoke of home, it was no longer home. And they were no longer strangers in that twisted land.

 

It wasn’t until the dawn of the sixth year that the enemy began to fight back. The Greeks had gotten lazy and tired, and Raul was growing older. His mind was as sharp as ever, but the brute strength remained burning bright in Sergio where it slept in Raul. He wanted peace, and he wanted to go home, but the enemy wouldn’t have it. They fought, long and hard, and the gold began to feel heavy in the hulls of Greek ships when more and more men came in on wooden planks with pale, pale eyes, breathless lips, those cold hands. What did a solid gold block mean when their brothers were stretched out with their stomachs ripped open?

 

Raul wanted to go home, and the men wanted to go home, but they could not give in. Most of them would never again set foot on Greek soil again. They would never smell the sweet summer air or look into the eyes of their love. They would die in the black sand with the sea that stretched on and on and on until it kissed quiet Greece, calm Greece, Greece of the empty homes.

 

One day they were awoken just before dawn. Cesc rose with his typical scowl in Iker’s direction as if he was personally responsible for the sounding of the alarm. They still shared a tent after so long because Cesc had been his servant from childhood, and neither one of them-- despite the hatred that stewed between them-- felt fully complete without the other beside him. When the alarm sounded, Iker reached for the other man, but he was already up and half-dressed, looking eagerly out the flap but not moving outside until Iker was ready to move beside him.

 

Something felt different about that morning. The men were running, running, stumbling, and picking themselves back up again and running. They couldn’t run fast enough, and they were yelling like they were choking on their own blood. Someone was sobbing. There was a violent scream from someone, so deep and so lonesome, and so filled with grief that Iker felt it down to his bones. And then another terrible noise, like a footstep magnified. One and then the other like marching. A giant walking among humans. A giant or a god. Another anguished scream and a roar like a kraken had risen from the water.

 

Iker grabbed his sword and ran. Without knowing where he was going, his legs led him to his old familiar hunting ground. The sea. The men were all gathered there, gathered around something, and he couldn’t see what it was. He checked once for Cesc beside him. The other man nodded, and for a moment at least, they had forgotten their sorrows and their anger.

 

Iker wrenched his gaze away and pushed his way through the men; they parted easily enough for him until he was standing on the shore with the violent waves beating at his shins. As soon as he stepped fully in the water, it seemed to calm itself, fanning out until only foam remained, gathering around a man, soaking wet and hunched over a body.

 

Sergio. He looked up at Iker as water ran down his face, and Iker knew without a doubt that the first scream had been his. His cheek was dripping blood, turning the sea foam pink. He made no move to staunch the flow, only looked down at the broken body in his arms.

 

Iker pushed forward. “Sergio, who--” And then he cut off when he saw the gold claw on the shoulder and the delicate hands that seemed more suited to writing letters than carrying a sword. The calm serene face streaked with blood. The chest caked with thick, dark sand. Raul, caught in the midst of a war between gods, was murdered in the water.

 

He sucked in a breath so fast he could taste the salt on the air. And then he was stumbling over himself, bending down to check if he was breathing, but no. No, Sergio was yelling. “Your god,” he screamed in Iker’s face. “Your god did this.”

 

Iker stepped back; he searched the crowd for Cesc because if he could just see the back of his dark head or the way his eyes shone in the early morning light. If he could just see how his back curved as he stood on his toes to see past all the heads. If he could just-- But there was time for that later.

 

“My god?” He kept his voice as low as possible. Sergio was a wounded animal. For the past six years, Raul had been his guide, his mentor, his adviser. His friend. After six years of fighting next to someone... it was no wonder he was going mad. “Sergio, what are you talking about? He must have fallen. He must have fallen and drowned.”

 

Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. The unnatural bend to his arms and legs. The way his eyes were wide open and staring at the sky. Bruised and bloodied, this was no accident. The men believed he was murdered by Poseidon for having the audacity to command an army on the brink of the god's domain; but Iker eyed the dark cliff that jutted over the water, the rocks below it, the way the King's head had been dashed against something hard-- this was no accident, and that was no giant marching. Only the hurried footsteps of a people united by their own unraveling.

 

His last words to Iker-- something about heroism, something about love. Something about weariness and a road that led nowhere.

 

“He told me,” Sergio yelled, his face contorting with rage.

 

The only thing keeping him from murdering Iker on the spot was his grip on Raul. He wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t let go even for a second. The tightness of his grip could have killed him a second time.

 

“He told me everything. The very first night we were here together, he saw you and he knew what you’ve been trying to hide from everyone.”

 

Something in Iker sank like a stone. He turned cold all over. He wouldn’t look to his right, couldn’t see that dark head bobbing above the others. “What are you talking about,” he said mechanically.

 

“That you’re his son,” Sergio spat, pounding his hand in the water over and over again. “Poseidon took him, and you’re the god’s son. Raul knew it from the minute you walked in. He smells of the sea, he told me. Like death.”

 

Before Iker could deny it, before he could say he was the son of the king of Ithaca and completely mortal, Sergio was lunging at him with a dagger. He dodged it once, twice, and then his men were there to take Sergio in his grieving state, reduced to a sobbing, weary mess, back to his tent where he would pace and prowl for months on end. The hungry, haunted look would never leave his eyes.

  
  
  


“Is it true then?”

 

“Is what true? That nonsense about me smelling like death? No.”

 

Cesc didn't crack a smile. “That nonsense about you being Poseidon’s son.”

 

“No. I’m a prince from Ithaca. You know me. You grew up with me.”

 

“I knew you as a child. I don’t presume to know the man you have become.” Cesc sat on the rocks beside Iker as he stared out at the sea. “You know, your father did always say you were destined for greatness.”

 

“That’s what every father says. Especially mine because he wants Ithaca to be destined for greatness. And so he wants me to be destined for greatness.”

 

“But--”

 

“I’m not,” Iker said quickly. “I know you want me to be, but I’m not. I’m not part god. I’m not even part hero.” A hero would give you up. I am not a hero.

 

Cesc brushed his hair out of his eyes with a tired sigh. Six years older, taller and stronger, he had grown more handsome. It had been over a year since Iker had kissed those lips, ran his fingers through that hair, looked into those dark eyes with the knowledge that they were his. He missed it like Cesc was half his soul.

 

“Then why would Sergio say that?”

 

“I don’t know. People say things when they’re in pain.”

 

“Then why would Raul say that?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“And why would--”

 

“I don’t know,” Iker snapped. “I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t even know what we’re doing here anymore, but with Sergio....unable to lead...” He ran his hands over his face. “...They’re asking me to step up and fill Raul’s shoes, and I don’t even know what we’re fighting for. Raul knew. He knew what to fight for. Who to fight for.”

 

“He also knew it was time to go home.” There was a trace of wistfulness in his voice, low and burning like the embers of an insistent but dying fire.

 

“We can’t just leave. They have ships on the other side of the island. We’d be murdered in the water like him. We’re trapped.”

 

“Can’t we fight our way out?” His childish optimism was endearing and tragic.

 

“An army can’t fight without a leader," Iker told him. "And ours is dead.” And when he lived, he was lost.

 

“So long live the new one. You’re here," he insisted as if Iker was trying to deny it. "You’re meant to lead us.”

 

“I’m not meant for anything, Cesc. Don’t buy into those prophecies.”

 

The promise of some significant future had always hung over his head like a noose, worse even than the inevitable crown that would fall into place upon the death of his father. He hated those fateful whispers. They were condemning him, not paving his path to immortality.

 

“I thought you were a faithful man.” Cesc was tight-lipped. He had only ever known devotion. Even when his lands were flooded and his family was starving, he would never speak against the gods.

 

Faithful to you. “It’s not hard for a prince to be devout, when his whole world is intact. But when things fall apart, even the bravest king blames the gods. Sergio was on his knees because of what they caused us.”

 

Cesc’s eyes widened. “Iker,” he said warningly. “Don’t say it like that. You know you can’t.”

 

He was too tired to be foolish. He was too weak to fear. “We attack at dawn. Get a rumor going through camp that the gods punished us for our hesitancy. The men will live to fight again.”

 

Cesc was quiet. Ever since he was a child, he hated to lie. He always made the same quiet, disapproving face, and then he dusted off his hands, jumped to his feet, and trusted anything Iker had to say. Six years later and it was no different.

 

“And Cesc.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You won’t be fighting tomorrow.”

 

His face was blank and lifeless, disappointed to once again be thrust aside like the weakest of the bunch. He would never understand that his exclusion had nothing to do with his strength and everything to do with his value.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

Iker nodded for him to go on. Wanted to grab his hand and say Anything. Like we used to be.

 

“You could have picked anyone,” he said, and that was all.

 

“No,” Iker said. “There was never a choice to be made.”

  
  


__

  
  


Iker charged into battle with a clear mind, and for the first time since Cesc had begun driving his chariot, he could think of their beating hearts as numbers. One, a stab to the jaw; blood and guts spilling out. Two, a stab to the groin; not dead yet, have to turn around to finish him off. Three, four five, six, he doesn’t remember. Seven, and he’s slicing his head clean off. It’s a dance for him again, and the Greeks were victorious from the very beginning.

 

There’s a tall man with bright, glowing blue eyes, and they say he’s a god. But he bleeds like the rest of them do. A lithe warrior in the front of the pack dressed in Spartan colors chops him down. He has a mess of dark hair, and Iker feels a warm rush of affection for Greece. No longer quiet, no longer calm, but not roaring either. Proud Greece, hungry Greece, Greece of the blood spilled and the deaths avenged.

 

There was a cloud of dust ahead of him, and he charged into it unafraid. With the brain of Greece dead and the soul of Greece defeated, Iker became its beating heart, and the men followed him. They were chanting his name before the fight was even finished. When they thought it was all over, they were chanting it again, and all he could hear was his name over and over and over again, melting in the mouths of the Greeks, taking on an entirely new meaning. He wasn’t Iker anymore; he was a king, without his father ever dying. He was king of more than just Ithaca. He was his own rocky shores, and he was all of Greece.

 

When the second wave of men came, they were confident and unprepared. The Greeks beat them back as best they could, but they were tired and, by the end of it, wounded. Blood, blood, blood, all over Iker’s hands, and there was a gash across his cheek. He wouldn’t stop bleeding. A knock to the head, and they were stumbling to the other side of the island, not far from camp. They were being forced into the water, and when the waves crashed into Iker’s back, his fury was blinding. Greece roared again, and they could not be conquered, not with a beating heart at their helm.

 

The enemy retreated, and the Greeks returned, weary but triumphant. Iker was grinning and tired and bloody, and he wanted to pass Sergio’s tent to slap his shoulder and tell him to cheer up, that everything would be alright, that he would find another man like Raul to be his constant companion. But grief, like love, is blinding, and his words would have fallen on deaf ears.

 

He ran through the thick sand, weary and dripping blood. He pulled back the curtain expecting to find Cesc, but it was empty. He was working with the wounded. When he was finished, he would meet Iker there. That’s always what happened, before everything, before their fight and before he was a disgraced man. Cesc would finish saving the wounded and return. He would always, always return.

 

There was a cry from somewhere in the camp, and Iker looked up. Still bloody and light-headed, he stood slowly and peered out the flap. He didn’t care for the drama of the camp, for the constant competition between men over who had the most female prisoners or who could piss the farthest or whose sword was covered with more blood. He wanted only to return home, and seeing Cesc was one step closer. He smelled of home, even across the tent and a world away. He smelled of home.

 

But they were shouting more than ever now, and Iker, convinced he had a fight to break up-- probably involving Sergio who was now wrestling with demons too dark to ever fully conquer-- ran over unsteadily. “What’s going on?” he called, nearly tripping. “Didn’t I order you all to rest?” It was his attempt at a joke, but the men were serious. Ashen. So pale, and he couldn’t see straight.

 

“We should get your head bandaged,” someone said worriedly, hurrying forward to press their cold, damp fingers to his bloody skull.

 

“No, no,” he said, pushing the other man away impatiently. “Cesc is there helping the wounded, and I don’t want to worry him. Someone else will have to bandage it.”

 

Two blurry figures exchanged a look in front of him. They were speaking in whispers, and then there was another cry from behind them, and there were six men. Six men walking towards him with a wooden plank in between them. Two could have stumbled with the plank and a body, as they normally did, but out of respect. Out of respect for the one that had fallen, they decided to walk silently through camp to present the body.

 

Iker felt sick. His head was killing him, and the blood was starting to drip down his shoulder. He was going to pass out if he didn’t sit down soon. And then someone was holding his shoulder with a tear-streaked face and, horrified without knowing why, he pushed the other man away. Don’t.

 

Later, they agreed that Iker must have known. He must have seen the dark hair fall over a pale, bloody face. He must have recognized the armor.

 

There were six men walking towards him and a seventh on the stained, wooden plank.

 

He broke--

 

Beautiful boy, beautiful beautiful boy. Come back to me. Wipe the blood off your chin. Tuck the ribs back in your body.

 

He fell back against the sand. He had thought that he knew pain, but he had not known pain like this. Ten feet away from the slab on the ground, he reached out to brush the dust from Cesc’s curls, but he was only reaching for air. Breaking on the ground with his knees in the sand, he wept like a child in front of his soldiers.

 

The body in the sand-- Bones broken, body mangled. Ribs open like gates. Flesh like flaps of cloth, cut up and colored red.

 

At last the tears could flow no longer, and Iker stared until his eyes burned, and he could only choke out. “I wasn’t. I’m not.” The words he had refused to speak from so long ago. Because-- later, when they had more time. From the very start, that boy had brought him to his knees.

 

There was a strong hand on his shoulder, and Sergio pulled him up from the sand, his own eyes dark with grief and longing. He spoke something to Iker, quietly and sympathetically, but Iker shook his head. He was deaf to everything. He could only look with obsessive tunnel vision at the bloodied body on the ground. To everything else, he was blind.

 

Blood dripped down his face and into his eyes. His head was spinning in circles, and he felt like he was on the shore again with his back to the waves, waiting for the enemy to rush him. In his dreamlike state, he looked around for Cesc. Pretended it was real and that he could save him. He would stumble forward, take the sword through the chest, watch as they mangled his own body instead of ripping into Cesc’s.

 

He pitched forward, planting his face in the sand. It was superheated from the sun, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t. He let it burn, burn, burn until the blood loss proved to be too much and his eyes slammed shut.

 

The last thing he saw: his men moving the wooden plank and the puddle of blood it left behind.

  
  


010 poison.

 

When he woke up, there was a brief moment of oblivion. He heard the wind against the side of the tent and the ocean on the shore. Greece, he thought. Home. And then, he heard a breath beside him, and he thought of Cesc and his rose-colored lips and the smooth feel of his back. A sharp, sudden pain shot through him, and he remembered: he would never hear Cesc’s breath again. Everything fell into place.

 

And that, perhaps, is what drives this hero mad. Not the gods but the brutal end of love. He would blame the gods, as they all do. He would shake his fist at the sky and cry until his eyes cried blood. He could rage and shake all he wanted, but the world would not rage and shake with him. The world would be still. Greece would be silent. Quiet Greece, calm Greece-- those cliffs and that wind. He could never return to his home. Not with everything dead and destroyed and bitter.

 

He sat up slowly, aware of the bandage around his head and around his leg. As the world came into focus, Sergio appeared, sitting in the corner of his tent looking gaunt. There was a scar on his upper arm that Iker had never seen before.

 

The flood of guilt was pounding through his veins, and he needed to see him again. “Where,” he demanded. “I need to know that it’s true.”

 

Sergio winced gently. He stood up slowly as if Iker was an animal he was afraid to spook. “Iker,” he said quietly. “The thing is--”

 

“Show me where,” Iker snapped.

 

“Iker,” he said again. He’d always been good with words that hurt. “The thing is...you were asleep for a long time.”

 

“How long?” He didn’t care how long. He only wanted to touch the pale skin to his. He needed his flesh to understand. Breaking again, he turned away.

 

Sergio rubbed a blister on his hand. “Five days,” he said, as Iker became aware of a smell. It was the sort of smell that clung to the hair on his arms, traveled up and down his spine like a single, scratching fingernail, and filled his lungs with its venom.

 

He looked to his right, and a weak, battered sound escaped his lips. The body’s skin had blistered; flies were buzzing. When he reached his shaking hand to touch what had once been Cesc’s warm skin, it flaked off. Like the crisp leaves in autumn, he was falling, falling falling apart in Iker’s hands.

 

“His soul,” Iker choked out. He couldn’t breathe. “What of his funeral pyre?”

 

Like some deathless soldier, Cesc was propped up in his normal resting place with his sword across his chest. His cold, bony fingers were gripping the handle as they so rarely did in life.

 

Deathless soldier of the eternal night, come back to me.

 

“I had to let you say goodbye.”

 

Iker put his head in his arms and rocked back and forth-- And, dark night, black night, rip me into pieces and scatter me across the sky. If only to rest beside him among the stars.

 

Later that night, they built a fire so large and so bright that the Greeks fell to their knees before it. They burned his body, and they buried his ashes in a grave, small and simple with his name engraved in the white stone. He was a boy of a bold heart alone in his grave, his beating heart intact in another.

  
  
  


The next few weeks, Iker didn’t lead them into battle. He stayed alone in his tent, sometimes searching the floor for where the skin flaked off, retracing his steps. Touching the hilt of his sword here, the tip of the blade there, and remembering Greece with every sharp inhale.

 

When he could suffer it no longer, he went to Sergio’s tent. With empty eyes, he said, “He will not let me sleep.”

 

And for a moment he was somewhere else, kneeling at the base of the funeral pyre, desire flowing like a dream. The dark, silent world was all the more dark and silent for Cesc’s absence. He thought there was only chaos or calm, silent or noisy, good or bad, but there were layers upon layers to his sorrow that he never knew existed. He was chaotic and silent and calm, just as he was raging and burning and loving.

 

He blinked, and he was returned to the dim tent. He remembered what his father had told him when he first asked about his mother’s death: “All lovely things die, and they are all the lovelier for their temporary tread on this earth.” Iron tears down his cheeks.

 

“Do you see him?” Sergio asked hoarsely.

 

“Only in my nightmares. Hell grants what this world cannot.”

 

Sergio smiled thinly at the other man’s words. “It’s funny, really. You hear these stories about the gods turning people into trees or rivers or fountains so they don’t have to face their pain anymore. I just wish some immortal would take pity on me now. Make me a flood so I can weep without tiring.”

 

Iker looked down at his hands. “This war has taken everything from me-- from us. Don’t you think it’s time to go home?”

 

“It’s long past time to go home. We should have gone home before I found him dead in the water.”

 

“And before...” He buried his head in his hands. “Tell me,” he said. “He was never supposed to be there. Tell me how they ripped him apart.”

 

Sergio looked at him. He was incapable of delivering anything but the truth. To lie was not the Spartan way. “He had grown accustomed to driving your chariot into battle. He couldn’t let you go without him.”

 

“And now he’s gone without me.” He paused, closing his eyes. “So they didn’t rip him apart. I did.”

 

“No,” Sergio said in an uncharacteristically small voice. “He stole Spartan armor.”

 

Iker buried his head in his arms.

 

When he finally collected himself, he left Sergio’s tent and walked immediately to the water. The waves brushed over his feet, but for once, the presence wasn’t comforting. It was cold and lonely, and he was struggling to find meaning in their last conversation. But it meant nothing, as it all did. They would all die in vain as he had.

 

He wanted to believe that he could see Greece on the other side of the great expanse of water, just as he wanted to believe that there was an easy road before him, but the truth of the matter was that they were surrounded by ships fighting a war with no purpose, senselessly slaying all that lay in their path. Not for home, not for the ones they loved; for nothing. And the road before him was not easy. He would never truly return home because half his soul would remain on the godless island with the sand the color of burnt driftwood. Even the greatest of heroes could not bear the loss of half their soul.

 

And yet he carried on. Unhappily and forever with longing eyes, he returned to battle though he had long since lost his taste for the petty affairs of men. No longer a monster with pumping blood, he fought mechanically with Sergio at his side. They were an empty pair, swinging knives in an attempt to kill off ghosts.

 

After three more years of surviving, remembering, and nightmares, at long last they could return home victorious. Their ships were full of gold, their stomachs full of food, but their feet were heavy upon the ground, and their minds were filled only with the images of the men they had murdered.

 

Iker stepped onto Greek soil, but he could hardly smell home on the air, and the cliffs no longer looked like wings. They were merely the cliffs of his childhood, where he and Cesc had tripped over the roughness, bloodied their palms as they caught themselves, ran away laughing and never doubting they would live forever.

 

He returned to a dying father and a throne he didn’t want to claim. The crown rested heavy on his weary head. He ruled well in his father’s stead, and when his father finally passed on to the next world, Iker ruled fairly. He was harsh when he needed to be and kind when it was required of him. But he did no more than necessary. He was indifferent, as cold as the winter winds whipping over the land.

 

The only place he could find peace was the hill, amongst the tall grass where he had first seen the shepherd boy. He shut his eyes. Remembered the pan pipes hanging from loose fingers, the way his hair moved in the wind, and the way his fragile body had looked cut to shreds. He remembered how it felt to be blind to all else, and he wanted to return to that place in space and time. That place, where Cesc was alive and well, walking through their olive grove with bare feet and sticky hands from climbing the fruit trees just outside the temple.

 

Iker would be remembered, long after his death, for his heroics during the war. But even more vividly, for his grief.

  
  
  


Sergio left Sparta often, and his brother ruled while he was gone. He had lost his taste for all but his brief visits with Iker and the little joy that praying to Athena brought him. As buried in his past as Iker, he enjoyed reminiscing about the time before the war. He spoke of the fierceness of the Spartans, how they would eradicate the weak. Only the strong could survive. He no longer felt at home there because he wasn’t strong. There, strength meant pride and blood and war, and he could stand no more of it.

 

“Do you think they died good deaths?” Sergio asked one night out of the blue.

 

The room darkened. “Is there really such a thing as a good death?”

 

“There’s such a thing as a bad one,” Sergio reasoned. “So there must be a good death. Right?”

 

“No,” Iker said sadly. “There is only death. It wouldn’t have mattered if he died cowering in the corner with tears streaming down his face. I would still mourn him as long as I lived.” He paused. “I will mourn him as long as I live.”

 

Sergio spoke no more. After he left for Sparta, Iker walked out to the shore and kept walking. He strode through the waves until he could stand no longer and the waves were up to his neck. They crashed across his face, and he couldn’t breathe. The salt stung his eyes and drew tears, and suddenly he was sobbing for everything that had collided in his life the past ten years. It was more than he could bear.

 

He swam until his arms hurt, until his lungs were bursting, until the old wound on his head was starting to burn again. When at last he thought he could duck his head beneath the water and suck in sweet oblivion, his muscles betrayed him, and he began to swim back to shore.

 

He lay in the grass again, soaking and exhausted. He shut his eyes, and Cesc appeared as he once had, without the blood, without his ribs open like gates. His hair moved in the wind, and he was barefoot. Iker squeezed his eyes shut harder. The boy in his dream would live forever. To everything else, he was blind.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so I submitted this to the futbal minibang thing which is wonderful, so if you get a chance to do it next time around, i definitely recommend it. 
> 
> *second warning: this story is a little more flowery than i normally write. hopefully it's not too cheesy because the more i read over it, the more cheesy it seems to me. i absolutely loved writing it, and i enjoy reading it over bc it took me forever to write--sorry about the length but it had to be done-- and i wanted more mentions of their relationship before, but in the end i decided to keep the story the way it was. We'll talk about why later. 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think. As usual, I'm going to remind you how much I love your comments and how I truly value your opinion. I haven't replied to the comments in a long time because of the chaotic nature of things, but i've been thinking about things I want to write in the future. Lots of fabsillas of course. But please suggest a pairing, maybe something I've never done before! I'm willing to try something new :) Thanks for your patience. 
> 
> on helpless: I'm getting there. It will eventually be completed and published. For now I want to kick Alonso out of the story entirely, so the next chapter might be a little harsh on him-- but no harsher than he deserves.


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